


Swan Dive

by lady_rhian



Series: Wild Geese [4]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Clint is a relationship expert, Complicated Relationships, Everyone Has Issues, F/F, M/M, Multi, Natasha Feels, Natasha and Clint are BFF, POV Natasha Romanov, Sexual Content, Tarot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-27
Updated: 2014-04-27
Packaged: 2018-01-21 00:34:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1531436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lady_rhian/pseuds/lady_rhian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha and Pepper deal with the fallout of <i>The Avengers</i> and <i>Iron Man 3</i>, and they actually (finally) get to think about having a relationship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Swan Dive

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is part of a series and will make significantly more sense if read in continuity. It should be noted that this installment only goes past the events of _Iron Man 3_ and as such is not compliant with the events of _Captain America: The Winter Soldier_. 
> 
> Trigger warnings for brief allusions to/depictions of substance abuse and physical abuse.
> 
> Unending thanks to my dear friend and beta Evyann. All errors are mine.

_I am reduced to a thing that wants Virginia. I composed a beautiful letter to you in the sleepless nightmare hours of the night, and it has all gone: I just miss you, in a quite simple desperate human way…. even more than I could have believed; and I was prepared to miss you a good deal. So this letter is really just a squeal of pain. It is incredible how essential to me you have become. I suppose you are accustomed to people saying these things. Damn you, spoilt creature; I shan’t make you love me any more by giving myself away like this—But oh my dear, I can’t be clever and stand-offish with you: I love you too much for that. Too truly. You have no idea how stand-offish I can be with people I don’t love. I have brought it to a fine art. But you have broken down my defenses. And I don’t really resent it._

—Vita Sackville-West, written to Virginia Woolf, January 21, 1926

* * *

“I’m fixing her.”

Those are the only words Tony Stark utters before Natasha Romanov’s fist smacks into his thick, thick skull. 

She doesn’t see red, just a blur of color; doesn’t feel anything distinct, just hands on her body, safe hands, _Clint’s_ hands, dragging her away from Stark. Clint is whispering something in her ear but it isn’t registering; Coulson’s voice is in the background, like the Charlie Brown teacher, probably talking Stark down. 

Nat hasn’t been so furious she was disoriented in a long, long time. Not since she was eleven, beaten to within an inch of her life, and lying on her bedroom floor—a Swiss Army knife just within reach. 

_I’m fixing her._

Like Ginny was a piece of machinery that needed fixing.

*

It doesn’t surprise Nat to see how many people are at the hospital for the final surgery, which is relatively minor but important in its finality.

Mostly, it’s notable because it’s the first that any of them have heard of the procedures. 

It’s indicative of how many people care about Ginny—and, Nat supposes, Stark. Clint and Coulson are here, but then, Coulson has always counted Ginny as a friend. Happy is checking everyone’s badges. Rhodey nods a ‘hello’ in Nat’s direction. Steve is sitting on the other side of Tony. They’re arguing about movies or cars or something, one of their old “was it better in the ‘40s or now” arguments, and it takes Nat a moment to realize that Steve is picking a fight on purpose. 

_Thank fuck for Steve_ , she thinks. Stark doesn’t look like he’s slept in days, and he is obviously on the brink of losing it. Again.

Nat leans against a wall and slumps to the floor, elbows on her knees. Clint sidles over to her wall and sits down next to her. 

“Might want to pull yourself together,” he mutters, setting a cup of coffee in front of her. 

“Did you know this was happening?” she asks, ignoring the coffee. 

“No. Phil didn’t either,” Clint adds. 

“Shit.”

Clint sips his coffee. “Pretty much. Secret Agent Pepper would have been pretty badass to have on S.H.I.E.L.D’s side.” 

“Trust Stark to pull something like this,” Nat mumbles under her breath. “I want to know how she’s doing.”

“You’ll know soon enough. And no way he figured out a cure for Pepper without Banner,” Clint says. “That jackass has a lot to answer for. Once we, you know, figure out where he is.”

Nat leans her head against the wall. _Fuck_. “Again?”

“Yeah.”

“He’s worse—”

“Than you are, yeah, I know. First he ducks out on Tony right before the Mandarin, then again before Pepper’s surgeries. He’s going to give Phil a heart attack, and it’s not like we’re going to have Asgardians around to clean up that mess, and then I’m going to have to kill him, and I’m not exactly looking forward to killing the Hulk. That’s going to be hard. You’re going to have to help,” Clint says, studying the ground far too seriously to be kidding. 

Nat just stares at Clint. “You’re enlisting me to help you assassinate Banner for your partner’s as-yet not-happened second death for which Banner is not yet responsible.”

Clint freezes, his coffee cup half way to his mouth. “I’m making contingency plans.”

Nat squeezes Clint’s arm. “You’re cute when you’re worried.” She pauses. “Why exactly are you worried about Pepper? Isn’t she on your kill list?”

“God, you’re slow. I’m not worried about Pepper, you dumbass.”

Nat bites her lip and leans her forehead against Clint’s arm. “I’ll be fine.”

“See, when you’re doing that instead of hitting me, I get worried.” Clint gulps down the rest of his coffee.

“Shut up.”

“Better,” Clint says.

“Yeah?”

“Only a bit. But sure, yeah, why not.” Clint ruffles a hand through his hair.

Nat sits for a moment, quiet. “Okay. I’m done here. Call me when she’s out and I can go in alone,” she says, scrambling to her feet. 

“Wait, what?” Clint asks, brow furrowed. 

“I’m not sticking around,” she says. This particular configuration of people in a hospital waiting room was quickly becoming her personal idea of hell. 

“But—” Clint starts, before getting a look at Nat’s face. “Copy. I will tell everyone you stepped out to get us real coffee.” He pauses. “You know Phil’s gonna kill you.”

Nat shrugs on her leather jacket. “You really need to stop threatening me with Phil.”

“Well, _I_ can’t threaten you. You won’t believe me.”

Nat smirks. “That’s the sweetest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

“Shut up,” Clint says, trying to kick her as she walks away.

*

_Eight Months Ago_

After New York, Nat sees Ginny everywhere. She sees her in the subway, in her building, on the street. Any time she hears stilettos, any time she sees the swish of a white coat turning around a corner, any time she smells Ginny’s perfume, it feels like an anchor lands in her gut, sinking her down, down, down, grounding her in one spot, unable to move until she’s ascertained whether that woman is Ginny. She climbs staircases, rides elevators to extra floors, goes into numerous coffeeshops and buys more lattes than she would ever have thought possible, all in the pursuit of women who look like Ginny. 

She ignores the voice in her head that asks,

_And what would you do if you caught her?_

*

One day, she’s with Clint in a bagel shop when she sees a woman who looks like Ginny. She waits until Clint is in the bathroom, sneaks out behind the woman, follows her for a few blocks until the woman goes into a building where Nat can see her profile clearly.

Not Ginny. 

Obviously.

When she makes her way back to the bagel shop, she looks through the window and sees a gay couple at the table instead of Clint. She sighs and turns around. Clint is leaning against an empty cab, grinning. 

“You are not nearly as sly as you think you are,” he says. 

She just turns on her heel and picks a direction to walk in. 

“How long has this been going on?” Clint asks, easily catching up to her and matching her stride. 

Nat says nothing.

“You know, the casually stalking any woman who even slightly resembles Pepper Potts. Just to clarify,” he says. “How long?”

They wait for the crosswalk in silence and narrowly avoid getting hit by a speeding convertible. Clint swears under his breath, and Nat smirks in spite of herself. Goddamn the fact that he’s so tenacious.

“Long enough,” she says as they step into the crosswalk, easily navigating around other pedestrians. 

“Do you have any control over it?” he asks as they meet on the other side of the street, and the question is surprising enough that Nat actually looks over at him. 

“Yes,” she says slowly as they keep walking. “Every time, I know that I could choose to not follow the woman. But…” She purses her lips.

“Cause you know they’re not Pepper,” Clint says. “You know what she looks like. I imagine you know every contour,” he says, and somehow the statement seems utterly serious and without innuendo. 

Because, yes. She _does_ know every contour, literally, biblically—but she also knows every contour in the way she knows Clint, knows Coulson, could avoid killing all of them in enemy territory. She’d recognize Ginny’s form a mile away, through a scope. 

“It’s… comforting. To see traces of her,” Nat says after a moment, and the confession feels wrenched out of her gut.

Clint simply nods. “Coffee?” he asks, pointing to a Starbucks on the corner. 

“Yeah.” Nat is grateful that he’s dropped the subject, but she knows that it won’t be for long. And she’s sure that it’ll find its way into some sort of psych eval or other.

*

Nat knows what everyone thinks of her, mostly because she knows what fear looks like.

She knows who isn’t afraid of her, and she can pretty much count them on two hands. Phil and Clint. Stark. Fury. Hill. The Avengers. 

Ginny.

Ginny is the only non-lethal person she’s ever met who wasn’t afraid of her. And she knows that’s probably at least half of why she fell for the woman. 

Ginny looks at her and doesn’t see the kills. She knows that Ginny has seen what she can do. But she has looked past it, too. Has held her in her arms and known, _known_ what a weapon Nat was—tasted it in the crevices of her skin, smelled it in the backs of her knees and other places Nat didn’t wash up so well… and kept her anyway. 

And that. That’s what kills Nat, every morning when she wakes up, before her feet even hit the floor.

*

_Five Months Ago (or, three months after New York)_

Nat is wrapping up an assignment at the Quin in Midtown, and she looks over at the bar longingly. It’s a beautiful bar, hundred year old mahogany at least, and the bartender is pouring a _beautiful_ whiskey, neat, for a patron. The light catches in the amber liquid, and it shimmers off the chandelier, calling to Nat like a siren song. 

She licks her lips. She’s been good about self-care lately… mostly. Besides, the job is done. 

Nat saunters over to the bar and eases herself onto a seat with a small smile for the bartender. 

“What’ll it be, sweetheart?” he asks, all hers.

“Johnnie, neat.”

He nods, no airs, and grabs a glass. 

Nat pulls out her phone and is half way through the S.H.I.E.L.D newsfeed when she hears the _click_ of stilettos and a familiar voice ordering a ridiculously girly drink. 

With no pretense, Ginny scoots onto the seat next to her, not bothering to move when their knees brush against each other. 

Nat sets her phone on the counter and throws back the rest of her glass. She finally looks up and meets Ginny’s gaze. 

“You know, I used to hope for this,” Ginny says, looking at Nat straight on. 

“What?” Nat feels like she’s been struck dumb.

“Ah, thank you,” Ginny says as the bartender delivers the neon-colored concoction. She stirs the umbrella in her drink absentmindedly. “I’d be sitting in a Starbucks or at a hotel bar and I used to hope that one day, you would walk in and sit next to me.” She pauses. “This works, too.”

“Like old times?” Nat asks.

“No—not like old times. I wanted you to sit down and tell me where the hell you’d been,” she says, her expression hardening.

Nat licks her lips and laughs. “Funny. I had a fantasy, too.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. It was looking at a headline and seeing that you and Stark had split up.”

Ginny looks away.

“Like I said,” Nat says, signaling the bartender for another. “It was a fantasy.”

Ginny takes a deep breath. “Tony and I are breaking up.”

“Excuse me?” Whatever Nat had been expecting Ginny to say—well, it was nice to know she could still be surprised.

“He’s coming to terms with things,” Ginny says, matter-of-fact.

“Things.” Nat accepts her new glass gratefully. 

Ginny looks Nat in the eye. “With the fact that he’s in love with Steve Rogers.”

Nat chokes on her drink.

Ginny pats Nat’s back but withdraws her hand when Nat calms down. “Tony is open-minded—literally, he will do anything—so I don’t know why this surprises him. It certainly doesn’t surprise me. He’s the queerest person I know, in every way.”

“Ginny—” Nat starts, her breath coming short. Memories of Steve and Tony on the Helicarrier are competing with the sight of Ginny’s eyes and—well, Ginny wins. 

When does Ginny _not_ win. Nat bites her lip. 

“I’m totally okay with it,” Ginny is saying. “Tony is my friend and my partner in so many ways but not in _that_ way, no matter how hard we try. We’ve been ‘off’ far more than ‘on’ for the better part of the last three years.”

“Ginny,” Nat says, her voice small, ridiculously small. 

Ginny takes a deep breath, obviously working up to something. “I wanted to tell you that. I—I had no claim, on you, then. I couldn’t tell you how I felt. And… look, we’re basically broken up, but Tony is fragile right now. He’s sorting through the reality that he is going to spend the rest of his life with another man, which I don’t think he realizes yet, but he will, because Steve is not the kind of guy you _don’t_ commit to.” She pauses, sighs, recalibrates. “I don’t know how you feel, and I don’t expect anything on the other end of this. But I—I have feelings for you. I _still_ have feelings for you, and I wanted to tell you.”

Nat is quiet. Her mind has gone blank, because this—this she does not do—she does not have the words for the pressure in her chest and the lead in her feet. She only knows how to interrogate, and this is not an interrogation, it _can’t_ be that, and Nat couldn’t trick herself if she tried. She stares at her drink, because she can’t look at Ginny, and that’s when she notices that Ginny’s hands are clenched together under the bar. 

Ginny’s hands are trembling. 

Nat swallows hard. So she’s not the only one who feels completely out of her depth. 

“Never mind,” Ginny says abruptly, getting up from the bar. “I understand if you don’t—”

Nat grabs Ginny’s arm, gentle but firm. “I don’t… I don’t have the words. But this… this has never been easy, between us.”

Ginny swallows and looks to the side, tears in her eyes. “Do you… God, I can’t. Just—just let me go.” She breaks away from Nat and walks away in a hurry. 

Nat clutches at the bar, her knuckles white. She shoots the rest of her whiskey in one gulp, throws a bill on the bar, and runs out through the lobby, past the patrons staring at the video collage, hoping to see Ginny on the street. 

She isn’t there.

*

_A month later (or, four months after New York)_

Nat takes to frequenting the coffeeshop across from Ginny’s usual lunch place. A small part of her brain recognizes that most of the population would call this stalking, but she genuinely doesn’t give a fuck. Besides, she isn’t most of the population. 

Ginny orders the same thing for lunch every day: a pesto, mozzarella, and tomato sandwich toasted on a honey oat baguette. She eats alone, usually with a book or a magazine. Some days, though, she takes her lunch outside on the patio, just sits in the sun and stares at passersby, taking in the scenery, her hand cupping her chin as she watches couples walk by, hand-in-hand. Sometimes, Ginny is on her phone, but it doesn’t look like she’s on a call—it looks like she’s making a recording, a voice memo or whatever the latest app is. 

Usually, a CEO takes lunch in their office, or during meetings. But Ginny seems to have been insistent that her lunch is her own. Then again, she works obscene hours, usually through dinnertime, barely grabbing fifteen minutes for a late-afternoon coffee break some days. 

And _everyone_ knows better than to disturb Ginny during lunch—even Happy. 

One day, Nat is watching Ginny eat her lunch when she hears a rustle. Her eyes dart only to see Happy sitting down across the table from her.

“Hi, Secret Agent Woman,” Happy says, folding his arms across his chest. 

Nat sets her mouth tightly. “Happy. Always a pleasure.”

“Why are you stalking Pepper?”

“I’m—” And Nat realizes that denial is pointless and admission will set Tony Stark on her ass. Best to blame it on S.H.I.E.L.D.

“And don’t tell me it’s S.H.I.E.L.D business. I checked with Agent Coulson and he said you’re on leave right now. So, what do you want with Pepper?” Happy asks.

Nat furrows her brow. “How long have you been stalking _me_?” she asks, genuinely curious.

“Three days. Kind of embarrassing, for you,” Happy says. 

“Yeah,” Nat says, sitting back in her chair, slightly stunned. “I…”

“Speechless, too, huh. Well, that answers my question. Let me know when you work up the nerve to talk to her, okay?” Happy asks, getting up from the table. 

“I—” Nat grabs at Happy’s hand as he starts to walk away.

“Do they teach you guys social skills at all?” Happy asks, bewildered. “You keep pining. I’ve got a Netflix queue to work through.”

Nat watches him walk out of the coffeeshop, completely baffled. 

She might have to consider setting him up on a TV date with Coulson, if only as payback for him taking her only good alibi.

*

Nat goes over to Coulson and Clint’s place. In her time away, it became “Coulson and Clint’s” place.

The things that change. 

Coulson is sitting at the kitchen table doing S.H.I.E.L.D paperwork when she arrives. Clint is sitting on the couch playing World of Warcraft. 

Nat smiles to herself. And, oh, the things that don’t. 

Coulson goes to the bedroom to do work because he insists that they are too disruptive, but she knows that he’s giving them privacy, and she kind of adores him for it. Not that she would ever tell him that. 

“What’s up, kid,” Clint asks, kicking his feet up on Nat.

“Get _off_ ,” she says, shoving his feet back on the floor. 

“I’m enjoying having the love of my life back from the dead after Nick Fury lied to us and used his death to manipulate all of our cooperation in the Battle of New York. How are you?” Clint starts. 

Nat rolls her eyes. That opening was old the first time he said it. 

“I’m… fine.”

“So, I hear you’re stalking Pepper.”

“Do the two of you have any respect for professional boundaries?” Nat asks pointedly.

“I heard that,” Coulson intones from the bedroom.

“Phil!” Clint exclaims. “At least _pretend_ not to eavesdrop.”

Phil doesn’t respond. 

“So…” Nat says, a bit more quietly. “Happy talked to Coulson?”

“I can’t believe _Happy_ got the drop on you.” Clint grins, not even trying to be serious about this. 

“Clint,” Nat says. “I fucked it all up.”

That shuts him up immediately. “Beer, then talk.”

“Do you not have whiskey?” Nat asks, a small hitch of panic in her voice. 

“Um, you went AWOL?” Clint calls from the kitchen. “And you haven’t exactly been Miss Congeniality since you got back.” 

“I figured you and Coulson were fucking like rabbits or something since you both got resurrected.” 

“Nice save,” Clint says, returning and handing her a beer.

Nat snorts and cracks it open. 

“So, how did you fuck it all up with Pepper already?” Clint asks, collapsing on the couch.

Nat shakes her head. “Didn’t have the words. Said the wrong thing. Didn’t say anything. Didn’t say how I felt. I don’t know.”

“Well, what did she say?” Clint asks slowly, and Nat tells him.

“Oh, Nat,” is all Clint says, and puts his head in his hands.

“I did it wrong,” Nat says.

“Well, _yeah,/i >,” Clint says, and pats her leg for good measure. “But we’ll figure it out.”_

__

*

But then there is the Mandarin, and Nat is being shipped off _everywhere_ at S.H.I.E.L.D’s beck and call, and then she’s stunned into silence as she watches Tony Stark pull the most idiotic stunt _ever_ and give out his address on live streaming.

She texts Ginny two words:

_GET. OUT._

Ginny doesn’t respond.

*

Months go by: radio silence.

Ginny never responds to the text.

Coulson says he knows Pepper is safe and in Tony’s hands, but aside from that, he knows nothing else. Clint believes him, and so does Nat.

She doesn’t like it. 

And then Nick Fury calls all the Avengers in and explains that Tony and Banner have been working on S.H.I.E.L.D’s behalf to replicate Extremis—just so they can combat it in the future. It’s like a shockwave goes over everyone, and Nat knows that they’re all thinking it’s the Tesseract all over again. 

Steve gets up from the table slowly, calmly, with a look on his face that can only be described as murderous. He sets his fists on the table, his shoulders so tight they may as well be reaching his ears, before something in him shifts and he turns abruptly and marches out the door. 

Everyone at the table exchanges worried looks. Everyone but Nat, who is on Steve’s tail as soon as he’s in the hall. 

“You okay, Cap?” she asks, her heels clicking fast behind him, trying to keep up. Damn, the man moves fast when he wants to. 

He doesn’t answer, just leads her down a few more hallways and into a quieter section of the floor before he puts his hands on a wall. Nat realizes that Steve is literally bracing himself. Suddenly, she’s really glad she followed him out. 

“He hasn’t been in touch for weeks.” Steve shakes his head. “He is the most self-absorbed, oblivious, _thoughtless_ —” 

“You thought he’d gone back to Pepper,” Nat says, and Steve looks at her for the first time, just stares at her, questioning but obviously not embarrassed.

Interesting. 

“Yes,” he says. “Turns out he just fell into the black hole that was his research. Honestly, I don’t know which is worse—losing him to Pepper or his lab.”

“I don’t think Tony and Pepper are ever, ever getting back together,” Nat says. She hears a snicker from the air vent. Oh, Clint. It takes her a minute to realize why he was chuckling.

One of these days, she is going to single-handedly take out a country radio station just for the hell of it. 

“Care to join us, Hawkeye?” Steve asks, looking up at the vent. 

“Nope, I’m good,” Clint calls down. “I didn’t know you listened to Taylor Swift, Nat.” 

“I don’t. Tell Coulson to stop listening to Top 40 country,” Nat says.

“Think of how I feel,” Clint says, sounding despondent.

“So, Tony’s being difficult. That’s my problem. What’s your stake in all this?” Steve asks, turning so that his back is leaning against the wall. He folds his arms across his chest. 

Nat bites her lip and casts her glance anywhere but on Steve. She knew that question was coming, but she still doesn’t have a good answer. 

She’s slow these days. 

“Look, Natasha, I know you worked the Whiplash case. I know you and Pepper got close. And you didn’t follow me out here cause you care about _my_ feelings. _We_ aren’t close,” Steve says, gesturing to the space between them.

“Harsh, coming from you,” Nat says.

“ _I_ care about the emotional well being of everyone on this team, because I see it as a team. I am not under the illusion that you do,” he says, and Nat shifts her stance, not unimpressed with him for not the first time. “Hell,” he says. “I have spent the last few months trying to work one _tendril_ of emotion out of Tony Stark, and he can’t even _call_ when the world’s most wanted terrorist shows up on his doorstep.”

“Have _you_ been okay?” Nat asks, her brow furrowed, because she’s actually interested at this point. And because Captain America looks like he’s on the verge of heartbreak, and that kind of freaks her out. She feels like only so many Avengers can be utter and total emotional wrecks, and Tony is completely in the throes of PTSD, and she’s—well, something—so Cap has _got_ to hold it together. 

Takes a minute for her to realize that she said all of that out loud. 

She is _really_ not on her game. 

Steve looks up at her and lets out a sigh. “I had convinced myself he didn’t care so—no, I have not been okay. See, this is how much of a wreck I am over that man, I am talking to _you_ about my feelings. Sorry. No offense to your qualifications, but I obviously need an appointment with a S.H.I.E.L.D therapist,” he says, walking away, which is when Clint decides to drop out of the air vent. 

“Dude, Captain America just insulted your emotional intelligence,” Clint says, hip checking her. 

“I have emotional intelligence?” Nat asks.

“You said it,” Clint says, walking the other direction.

*

Nat comes over to Coulson and Clint’s apartment for dinner that night, but it’s just Clint, so they decide to be lazy and order pizza and crack a six-pack.

“Can I ask you a question?” Clint asks. 

Nat just rolls her eyes. 

“Were you offended when Steve insulted your, ah—”

“Lack of emotional intelligence? No,” Nat says, sipping her beer. 

Clint is quiet, and she knows he’s waiting for her to explain.

He’s probably the only person for whom she’d explain anything. 

She bites her lip. “I’m intelligent about emotions—about reading people, about knowing, tactically, how certain people will react in certain situations. It doesn’t mean I have emotional intelligence. I don’t take it personally.”

Clint just gets up off the couch, returning a minute later with—

“Seriously?” Nat asks. “No.”

“Just once,” Clint says, setting his tarot deck on the table.

Nat stares at him.

“If you’re so sure it won’t work, then obviously there won’t be anything to tell,” Clint says, his hands open in supplication. “Just one question, Nat. Let’s just do one question.”

“Why?”

Clint thinks for a moment. “Budapest.”

“Oh, _fuck_ you,” Nat says. “You are cashing in Budapest for a _tarot reading_?” 

“Budapest is worth, like, a mercy kill, two vacations, and a dozen tarot readings.”

Nat runs her hands through her hair. “Fine. One question. How does this work?”

“Well, let’s take a few minutes and calm down, first, for God’s sake. Let’s have another beer and watch some TV first.”

And with that, Clint turns the TV on and opens another beer for each of them.

*

An hour later, Clint takes the deck in hand and starts shuffling while they’re cracking up over a torture scene on _Scandal._

“So, what do you feel like talking about?” he asks. 

“What kind of shit do people usually talk about?” Nat asks. 

“Family, love, and work tend to be the big ones,” Clint responds, ignoring her tone. “Don’t ask a yes or no question. It’s about exploring possibilities, not predicting anything, not directly answering anything.”

Nat snorts. “You know what’s on my mind.”

“Hey, you’re the one who has to ask a question. Keep it open,” Clint says, still shuffling.

“So, don’t fish for an answer is what you’re saying.”

He shrugs. 

Nat pauses for a moment. “What should I understand about my relationship with Ginny?”

Clint nods. “Okay. What does Nat need to understand about her relationship with Ginny?” he repeats, shuffling the deck more aggressively. He shuffles once or twice more. “Cut the deck with your dominant hand,” he says, holding it out to Nat. 

“Ambidextrous,” she says, smirking.

“Not quite.”

She purses her lips and cuts it with her left hand. 

Clint immediately flips three cards onto the coffee table, no pretense. 

“Well, that’s pretty obvious. But then, you’ve always been an emotional idiot,” Clint says, patting Nat’s knee.

“Does the psychic always insult the person they’re reading?” Nat asks, still leaning back against the couch, arms crossed. 

“Nah, that’s just us. Are you going to look at the cards?” Clint asks, gesturing to the cards, elbows on his knees. 

She sighs and scoots forward, her feet actually touching the floor now. 

“This is a basic reading for a love question. Past, present, outcome. Or, what was in the past, what is in the present, and the probable outcome, if things keep going the way they do. So, our past card—the Two of Swords.”

“Which means?” Nat asks.

“Dude, I’m going to explain them,” Clint says. 

Nat waves a hand. 

“Remembering your question—what should you understand about your relationship with Ginny? The Two of Swords is all about blocked emotions, avoiding a situation. You’re both fucking stubborn. The word stalemate comes to mind.”

“That’s…” Nat starts.

“Obvious, yeah. It’s not like you guys didn’t refuse to talk to each other for years or anything. You’ve had trouble communicating, staying in contact, understanding where the other person is emotionally.”

“She was kind of with someone else.”

“Yes,” Clint says. “And she and Stark have broken up, but your recent conversations—the recent past—is still repeating this pattern. Blocked emotions. Avoidance. Which brings us to the present card. Now, all the cards can tell a story, and this is a pretty strong spread, honestly, but this card—hinging, right in the middle, in the present, is a Major Arcana, which is a big fucking deal. When one of these turns up, you pay attention, okay?” Clint says.

“Okay,” Nat says, gesturing for him to talk. 

“It’s the Wheel of Fortune. It can indicate destiny and vision, but given what we’re working with, it’s probably more suggestive of movement or a turning point. There’s momentum, in one direction or another, _away_ from the stalemate, blocked emotions of the past,” Clint says, gesturing towards the “past” card. “Do you feel like there’s been momentum in your relationship with Ginny, one way or the other?” He arches an eyebrow.

“I’m not answering your questions, asshole.”

Clint shrugs. “In for a penny.”

“What direction do the _cards_ say we’re going in? Isn’t there a Lovers card?” Nat asks.

“You pay more attention than you let on,” Clint says. 

Nat snorts.

“This,” Clint says, “Is the projected outcome. It’s the Nine of Cups. Cups is an emotional suit, and the nine is a strong card that really pulls this spread into a narrative. To put it conservatively, the Nine of Cups suggests satisfaction, sensual pleasure, things like that. More broadly, wish fulfillment.” 

He pulls out his phone and snaps a picture before Nat can even react. 

“Hey!” she exclaims, reaching for the phone. 

“I haven’t done a reading this strong in years. No way I was losing the proof, cause God knows you won’t back my story.”

“And what’s the story?” Nat asks.

Clint looks Nat straight in the eye, dead serious. “It’s up to you, Nat, but this tells a pretty powerful story. Of something that has been blocked in the past. That you have a choice to move through, in the present. That could lead to deep satisfaction in the future. And given the question… well. Don’t be an idiot.”

“I thought tarot didn’t tell the future.”

“It doesn’t. It shows a possibility. You asked a question about what you needed to understand about your relationship with Pepper. This is the story—you’re at a turning point. The Wheel of Fortune is the present, Nat. It’s major. I’d pay attention, if I were you. But there’s plenty of time to fuck it up, if that’s what you want.” 

Clint gets up from the couch, gathers up his cards, and heads straight for the bedroom. He’s clearly had enough of her for the night. Then again, she can’t blame him. 

Nat shows herself out.

*

The next time Nat sees, or rather feels, Clint, he’s pulling her off of Tony Stark at a hospital. Because apparently, everything was not as it seemed after the Mandarin, and apparently, Ginny’s radio silence was because of a series of high-risk surgeries to remove Extremis.

Because it turned out that Stark and Banner were primarily using S.H.I.E.L.D’s resources as a way to cure Pepper Potts. 

Nat doesn’t know why she didn’t see that coming.

*

True to his word, Clint texts Nat when Pepper is clear to have visitors.

Nat shows up once everyone is gone. Everyone, that is, except Steve, who is guarding Pepper’s door like he’s under pain of death. 

“I was expecting Stark,” Nat says, walking up to the door.

“I told Tony to go get food. It’ll take him ages to get out of the cafeteria. The nurses like him,” Steve says.

“And he likes nurses?” Nat says automatically, before she can stop herself.

“It’s fine,” Steve says, nonplussed, and his relaxed tone and posture assure Nat that it is, indeed, fine. 

“Sorry,” she says anyway. “How is…” 

“Pepper’s doing well. Extremis is, by all accounts, gone. The surgeries were a success.”

Nat stares at her boots, trying to find the right question. “Is she happy?”

Steve pauses. “It’s hard to tell.”

At least he’s honest. “What do you mean?” Nat asks.

He sighs. “She’s obviously not in the best of spirits. But whether that’s because of Extremis and all of the procedures and the exhaustion, or because of her ordeal beforehand, or because…”

“Because?”

Steve folds his arms across his chest. “I stayed with Pepper a few nights this week, to relieve Tony,” he says. “She talks in her sleep.”

Nat just stares.

“She said your name,” Steve says, his voice barely above a whisper, and Nat feels like she’s been punched in the gut.

She walks into the hospital room with what she hopes looks like confidence.

The room is large, well lit, and unnaturally sterile. Basically, a really swank hospital room, but a hospital room nonetheless, and one that does nothing to disguise the fact that Ginny looks like shit. She’s pale and way too thin. Her hair is strung out on the pillow, unwashed and unkempt and obviously no one’s first priority. She turns to face the door. “Steve—” Ginny starts, but then her eyes widen. “Nat,” she says, swallowing. “Hi.”

“How you doing?” Nat asks, shoving her hands in her pockets, keeping a solid twenty feet between herself and the hospital bed. She doesn’t want to know what she’d do if she got closer. Crawl in, maybe, or something equally undignified and unbecoming. 

Ginny lifts her IV-ridden hands as much as she is able and gives a rather pathetic chuckle. “You know. Living the high life.”

“It’s good to see you,” Nat says, seemingly rooted in place anyway. 

“Yeah. You, too.”

Nat purses her lips. “I just—I just wanted to say I hope your recovery goes well. Let me know if you need anything.”

Ginny looks down and nods. 

Nat clasps her hands together. “Okay. Um, take care of yourself.”

“You too, Nat.”

Nat walks out of the room, feeling like she completely bungled up something else. Again.

*

Ginny gets out of the hospital and recovers at her apartment. The only people allowed to see her are Tony and Steve.

Nat, of course, doesn’t have a problem keeping her distance. She ignores Coulson’s pointed stares every time Ginny comes up in conversation, and she might have to take Clint into the ring at some point, because he is starting to approach levels of harassment. 

CLINT  
 _When are you going to see her?_

NAT  
 _She wants her space. She’d tell me if she wanted to see me._

CLINT  
 _… Right._

NAT  
 _It’s called respect._

CLINT  
 _Sometimes it’s called you show up and take a risk and knock on her door and say hi, I’m here, in more ways than one._

NAT  
 _..._

CLINT  
 _…_

NAT  
 _*sigh_

CLINT  
 _\o/_

NAT  
 _?_

CLINT  
 _A SIGH IS AN EMOTIONAL RESPONSE! NAT!FEELS! SQUEEEEEEEEE_

CLINT  
 _Nat, over._

CLINT  
 _3 hours. Srsly?_

CLINT  
 _Fine. 7 hours. You’ve made your point._

NAT  
 _#winning_

CLINT  
 _YAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAYAY XOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXOXO_

NAT  
 _I’m telling Coulson to take your phone away._

CLINT  
 _Our relationship doesn’t work that way._

NAT  
 _Does too._

*

The Avengers move in to Tony’s for a lot of reasons. Nat, Clint, and Coulson have a bet going that either Steve or Pepper, or both, are behind Tony’s invitation—particularly given the strain on Tony’s face when he suggests it.

Nat has a lot of sympathy for Tony; at the end of the day, it takes a damn private person to assume that kind of bravado in public. But she does think it’s a good idea for the team to have one place that is a mutually assured home base. Bruce keeps going AWOL, Thor seems to think that the team hasn’t articulated a proper need of him, and there is literally no one else on the planet who could begin to understand Steve. The more anchors they all have, the better: whether it’s the people or the facilities in Stark Tower (the lab, the gym, the theater)—it’s just—

Better.

Of course, Nat doesn’t know if it’s better for her. When everyone looks at her expectantly at the meeting, she just arches an eyebrow, and that takes care of that—for now. 

Clint and Coulson are a bit of a case, since half of the team doesn’t know they live together. They agree to do weekly dinners with everyone, but Nat can already see the way this train is going. 

The deciding factor is probably that Banner plays World of Warcraft. He and Clint spend hours on Stark’s couch one afternoon and do not move. Coulson just stares at them, deeply amused, though Nat is sure that everyone else assumes he’s expressionless. 

“So,” Nat says, nodding in the direction of the couch. 

A smile tinges at Coulson’s lips. “It might go back to being my apartment.”

“Would you mind?” Nat asks. 

“Not if it was best for the team,” is all Coulson says, and Nat isn’t sure how to take that. Couples never move out unless they break up. Then again, Coulson and Clint are the exception to every rule. 

Clint stays put at Coulson’s, but with half of the Avengers at Stark Tower, it becomes the official location for downtime (who knew they would all actually have stuff in common?), and when Thor returns from wherever he was off Thor-ing, it becomes a downright party. 

Nat spends more and more time there as the weeks go on. Tony makes cracks every chance he can get about how she just needs to move in already, and she can see the way this train is going, too, but she’s not ready yet.

*

Surprisingly, Nat enjoys visiting Tony in his lab, though she supposes it’s less the lab than it is pestering Tony, which she finds to be tremendously entertaining. One day, she drops in purely to drill him about his latest date with Steve. They went to Coney Island and were followed by dozens of teenage girls and members of the press. Nat finds this amusing. Steve, well—

Steve and Tony have had better dates. 

“I mean, you’re probably the two most singularly attractive gay men in New York—” Nat is saying, and Tony holds a hand up and stops her. 

“No labels, Agent,” he interrupts. “So boring. So… confining.” He shivers as if literally shrugging some kind of chill off. 

“Well, aren’t you technically bisexual or something?” Nat asks, a smirk playing at her lips as she goads him.

“No. I'm tri-sexual—I'll try anything once.” Tony grins at Nat, who just stares. “Oh come on, haven't you heard that one? _Sex and the City_? I’m totally a Samantha, by the way. Look, don't limit my libido, Agent Romanov, or it won't end well for anyone.”

“Men, women, robots?” Nat asks, arching an eyebrow. 

“Anything. I mean, not minors, even my brain has a limit, but I’ve got a pretty expansive range. Like, that movie _Her_? God, that system was hot. What was her name?” Tony asks, moving around his lab frantically. 

“Samantha, sir.”

“Yeah, Samantha. Jarvis, if I can ever figure out a way to build a Samantha, I'm replacing you.” 

“Duly noted, sir,” Jarvis says, and even Nat thinks it sounds sarcastic.

Nat rolls her eyes. “If that will be all, Mr. Stark?” she asks. 

“What about you?” Tony asks as Nat starts to walk out of the lab. “You're a super-sexy secret agent. Aren't you called on to seduce all manner of… I don't know, sheikhs, dignitaries—”

“Dignitaries’ daughters?” Nat says, turning on her heel. She smirks as Tony’s jaw drops. “Goodnight, Tony.”

“And sweet dreams to you, as well.”

*

“Natasha!”

Nat turns around as she’s leaving Stark Tower one afternoon to see Steve running after her. She can’t help but kind of smile, which probably just comes out as a smirk. He’s the only one on the team who calls her Natasha. 

“Heading home?” Steve asks. 

“Just out.”

“I just wanted to ask you a favor, for Pepper,” he says, no bullshit, and God, Nat is really fond of Steve, but that utter lack of pretense can be disarming. 

“Yeah?” she asks, like her stomach hasn’t already dropped through the floor. 

“Could you run this over to her apartment?” He hands Nat a small package from his coat pocket. “I already let her know you’re coming.”

“Sure thing.” 

“Thanks. Have a good night.” Steve turns around to head back in.

“Steve,” Nat calls, going with a gut instinct. 

“Yeah?” Steve asks, walking back towards her, and the way he ducks his head—

She shakes her head, tells herself there’s no way that’s possible. “Never mind.”

*

Nat texts Ginny to let her know she’s at the building, but she gets buzzed in with no response. Cold.

The elevator doesn’t even have music. What the fuck kind of building _is this?_

Nat walks down the hall to Ginny’s apartment, package in hand. In and out. Five minutes, tops. This is just a quick visit. 

But then Ginny opens the door for Nat, obviously still dressed from work, and a look is all it takes. 

Ginny pulls Nat across the threshold, and the package from Steve drops to the floor, forgotten. Ginny kicks the door shut, her hands all over Nat. 

Nat is full of—something. She grabs Ginny, and her hands have to be everywhere. She has to be kissing Ginny, cradling her face, stroking, touching, soft hands, light touches. God, it builds and builds, and builds. 

Until Ginny pushes Nat against a wall, her expression fierce. “You fucking _cunt_ ,” Ginny grinds out before her hands grasp at Nat’s shirt, pulling Nat towards her, fierce and possessive. Her tongue sweeps in Nat’s mouth before she breaks away. “You—” 

So this is how it’s going to be. Nat flips Ginny against the wall, knocking a lamp off a side table, and pins her arms to the wall, kissing her hard, cutting off whatever she was going to say. 

They’ve said enough. There’s too much hurt, too much want, too much… something. Nat rakes her nails down Ginny’s arms and Ginny makes an unholy sound, her hips bucking against Nat. Nat presses into Ginny, kissing down her neck, chest, fingers furiously undoing buttons as her mouth works against Ginny’s skin. She spreads Ginny’s button-down apart and presses her mouth to Gin’s stomach as her hands work Gin’s skirt up, her nails skimming along Gin’s thighs— _Bozhe moi_ , thigh-highs. 

Ginny lightly pushes Nat away as she shoves her skirt down and steps out of it, and Nat dares a look up at Ginny, barely held up by the wall, white shirt open, skin just _there_ for the taking. Nat presses a kiss to Ginny’s black briefs as she traces the satin lining of the thigh-highs, then rakes her fingernails up the backs of Ginny’s thighs and squeezes her ass. Nat keeps kissing Ginny’s cunt through the knickers, and the smell is making her dizzy with want. 

A singular thought breaks through the haze— _here?_ She doesn’t want to break the mood, but this is not how she envisioned the night going, and a more comfortable surface would be, well, more comfortable. 

“Bedroom?” Nat asks, barely getting the word out, and Ginny grabs Nat by the hand and yanks her upright before leading her down a hall.

*

Nat and Ginny tumble into bed, a tangle of limbs, tearing at each other’s clothes and grasping at bare skin like they could tear each other down to the bone and marrow and just rebuild everything from there.

Nat finally manages to get Ginny beneath her, mostly naked, and she takes a moment to lean her forehead against Ginny’s. The mattress is soft, the sheets are soft, Ginny’s skin is softer still. 

Nat takes Ginny’s hands in hers and pushes them into the mattress, breathes in and out. Just takes a moment to slow it down. 

She is not letting Ginny out of bed until she has fucked her thoroughly, in every way she knows how. Until Ginny has screamed Nat’s name and begged for mercy and then begged for more—until Ginny is gasping for water, until she comes so hard she soaks the bed, until she almost passes out. 

Then they’ll take a break for some water, maybe some food.

And then, they’ll do it again. 

Until Ginny gets the picture: understands the depth of what Nat feels, how sorry Nat is, has some sense of every promise Nat is trying to make with each touch.

In the meantime, Nat presses a fierce kiss to Ginny’s lips, tangles their hands together, digs her knees into the bed to support herself. 

That’s as much of a game plan as she has at this point.

*

Halfway through the night, Ginny is half-asleep in bed but manages a chuckle.

“What?” Nat asks, stroking her side.

“I feel like my vocabulary has been reduced to ‘yes,’ and ‘more’ and ‘please’ and ‘Nat,’” Ginny says, curling her body in towards Nat, reaching her lips up to Nat’s for a kiss. 

Nat smiles. “Good.”

“Talk in the morning?” Ginny asks, her hand combing through Nat’s hair, and Nat closes her eyes and leans into Ginny’s hand, and fuck, right now she would probably say yes to anything, this is not a good idea—

“Yes, of course,” she says. Of course.

“More?” Ginny asks in a small voice, spreading her thighs apart, and Nat’s hand immediately moves to claim the space between.

*

Nat texts Clint the next morning, canceling brunch. Honestly, she’s surprised she had the presence of mind to remember.

He responds with a question mark.

She declines to respond.

He asks if she got laid.

Maybe, she says.

Pepper? he says.

She just smiles.

He calls and leaves a half dozen voicemails, which she promptly deletes. 

Asshole.

*

Breakfast is lazy and quiet and perfect. They are naked and in bed with coffee and some fresh fruit, just laying against a huge mound of pillows, and it is small and still and _theirs_ , and then Ginny starts asking questions, because she’s _Ginny_ , and Nat—

Stuffs her face with strawberries to avoid answering. 

“That’s really hot, but you’re avoiding the question,” Ginny says.

“You asked a lot of questions,” Nat points out.

“Sorry,” Ginny says, ducking into her pillow so that only her eyes are visible, and she…

Conversations like this should _not_ be held naked in bed after nights like that. It is simply not fair. 

“Occupational hazard,” Ginny continues. 

“I could say the same thing,” Nat says, smiling. “Only I don’t think CEO’s call it an interrogation.”

Ginny grins and stretches out against the pillows.

“That is not fair,” Nat says, leaning over and kissing Ginny. 

“All’s fair in—”

“Oh, don’t quote that at me. Too easy.”

“ _You’re_ easy.”

“Mmhmm.”

“We don’t need to define this,” Ginny says, and Nat groans and lifts herself off Ginny, propping herself up on the pillow next to her, tracing circles on Ginny’s hip. “But I’d just feel better if I… I don’t know. Knew you were going to be… around? Knew more about your work? Had… something that, to you, qualified as security. Does that make sense?”

“Yes. But unfortunately I’m at S.H.I.E.L.D’s beck and call, and I can’t tell you about what I do. I can’t tell you everything, so a lot of the time it has to be nothing. In between doesn’t really work that well,” Nat says, eyes downcast.

“Phil and Clint—” Ginny starts. 

_Shit_. “Phil and Clint are as close to total disclosure as is humanly possible, and even _they_ can’t get there all the time, and that almost kills them. But anyone else who has a partner for any length of time—Sitwell, Fury when he’s got a new trophy wife— _they_ have to know nothing.”

“I had Tony.”

“Bad example,” Nat says, trying not to roll her eyes. “Tony is only ever half in with S.H.I.E.L.D, no matter what he would like to think.”

“Is it that you can’t tell me or you won’t tell me?” Ginny asks, her tone changing, and oh, this is not good.

“Both. I don’t know.” Nat rubs her eyes. “There are things I’ve done—“

“Nat—“

“You don’t want to know,” Nat says, meeting Ginny’s eyes. “Trust me on that. Clint doesn’t even know some of it. Some sins are just mine to bear. You don’t get them.”

“And me?” Ginny asks, leaning up on her elbows. “What about my sins? Who do I confess to, if not you? Relationships can’t be one-sided, Nat. It doesn’t work that way. One person sharing everything and the other sharing nothing? What does that make for?”

“I don’t know how this works! I’ve never done this before. I watch other people unravel—I’m never in the middle of it myself.”

“Goddammit,” Ginny says, looking away. “Just. Fuck.”

“Yeah. Just fuck,” Nat says, pushing Ginny back down on the bed.

“This isn’t what I meant,” Ginny says, even as her legs come up to wrap around Nat’s waist. 

Nat kisses Ginny hard. “Trust me. Please.” 

“I’m pushy,” Ginny says, breaking away from the kiss.

“No shit. I guess you feel a need to test the boundaries, huh?” Nat asks, capturing Ginny’s lips again, digging her nails into Ginny’s skin.

Ginny makes a guttural noise, her hips bucking up into Nat’s. Nat presses Ginny down: thrusts again, scratches harder, moves her lips down Ginny’s throat and bites the smooth curve where neck meets shoulder. 

“I mean, we can talk about it if you want—” Nat starts, coming up for air a minute later. 

“ _Not. Now_ ,” Ginny says, and Nat laughs and nips at Ginny’s throat.

*

Nat has done life without Ginny so long she doesn’t actually know how to put Ginny in. And honestly, she never really let herself envision a life with Ginny in it, so now that she has Ginny, she doesn’t know what the hell it’s supposed to look like.

Ginny, strangely, seems okay with this whole taking it day by day thing—but then, Nat supposes that being with Tony Stark for any length of time, personally or professionally, would probably break a person of the illusion that other people can be controlled.

Nat manipulates other people for a living: prepares for contingencies, strategizes, reads them up and down and sideways and from angles physics hasn’t discovered yet. Her job is to keep the variables minimal, under control, and constantly under surveillance. Everything has meaning because everything contributes to the outcome.

She finds herself approaching every day with Ginny like a job, imbuing everything with meaning, from the placement of keys on the counter to which scarf Ginny selected, to the length of Ginny’s texts to whether she took public transit or her own car back home. 

Sometimes, there are patterns. And sometimes, they mean something. Sometimes when Ginny takes public transit, it means she just wants to lose herself in the anonymity of the crowd, put her sunglasses on and get lost in the crush of bodies and crazy noise and smell. Be reminded of a time when she _wasn’t_ Pepper Potts, CEO. 

She also probably wants to blast her headphones and listen to some kind of heinous bubblegum pop, something she refuses to subject her driver to. 

But sometimes she has to take the company car when she’s in that mood, because she’s pressed for time or has an appointment or is running late or wants to listen to Britney Spears but can’t deal with the crowd because her day was too insane and so she’s going to hit the home gym to decompress later. 

All the variables in Ginny’s personal life drive Nat _insane_. It’s like she needs to watch Ginny 24/7 to have an idea of what’s going to affect her and why she’s going to be in the mood she’s in. And of course, she can’t. She’d never consider asking Coulson to reassign her to Ginny. She remembers how Clint asking Coulson to be his personal detail went. 

(Badly.)

At first, Nat’s anxiety amuses Ginny. “If you want to know something, ask. Don’t dwell and try to figure it out,” Ginny says simply. 

But eventually, it starts to annoy her.

“Seriously, Nat. You cannot control for every situation. Sometimes I’m going to be in a mood when I get home and it has nothing to do with you. Actually, assume that it never has anything to do with you,” Ginny says. 

Nat has never felt like this about anyone: has never felt this need to control. Perhaps because no one has ever made her feel so out of control. So vulnerable, so afraid of getting hurt, so precariously close to the edge. 

“You’re going to push her away,” Clint says one day. “Seriously. The stalking. The obsessive pushing. I mean, I never thought you’d turn into a relationship person, but you _trying_ is kind of terrifying. Next thing, you’ll be giving her a questionnaire. Oh, you did _not_ just perk up at that suggestion— _no_ , forget it, you are _not_ allowed to do that.” 

“Sometimes people need a push to get what you want out of them.”

“Relationships aren’t torture chambers, Nat,” Clint says gently, and it’s his tone that makes her sink into the couch, despondent. She hides her face in her hands. 

“This is… hard,” Nat says, feeling completely out of her depth. 

“If you feel that way, that’s when you know it’s worth something. Ginny is worth fighting for. You love her, yeah?”

Nat nods.

“Then there you go. Now, I’m going to introduce you to the new _Star Trek_ movies. You need to be human.”

“I have interests outside of the Avengers.”

“Like what? Your relationship? Stop being a girl,” Clint says.

Nat throws a pillow at him with stunning accuracy.

*

Nat finally agrees to take a room in Stark Tower, ostensibly for nights when she’s too drunk to drive home (no matter that Ginny’s loft is a two block walk). She knows that it’s a transparent move, and the team sees it for what it is. Steve shakes her hand, Banner just smiles, and Thor pounds her on the back and says, “Finally! We have proven ourselves worthy, gentlemen!”

At which point Tony laughs so hard that he obviously forgets what he was going to say, so Natasha takes advantage of the general chaos and disorder and excuses herself to her room, mostly to make sure it’s not booby trapped. 

She isn’t surprised to find Clint lying on her bed. She _is_ surprised to see the slim black, velvet box on her bedside table. She just tilts her head.

“It’s for you,” Clint says.

“I gathered as much.” She leans against the doorway, arms folded across her chest.

“You’re going to make me give it to you, aren’t you?” Clint says.

Nat just smiles.

Clint sighs dramatically. “You’re so difficult,” he says, but he gets off the bed and brings the box over to her. “Would you like me to kneel?”

“That’s not necessary,” Nat says, opening the gift. 

Her breath catches in spite of herself, and she traces a finger across the sterling silver arrow necklace. Simple, elegant. 

She bites her lip and closes the box. “Thank you.”

Clint wraps his arms around her and lifts her off her feet. “Welcome home.”

*

The hard thing, of course, is that Ginny is a real person. Nat has lived with the fantasy so long that she sometimes forgets Ginny is real, and does real things that are wonderful and also terribly, terribly annoying. And even the wonderful things can be terribly annoying.

Ginny always remembers the brands of groceries that Nat likes, and the liquor cabinet is always stocked with Johnnie, because she’s responsible like that—meticulous with detail, thoughtful, always remembers what Nat asks her to do, and does it promptly. 

But she squeezes the toothpaste from the middle, and she never rolls it until it’s at the very end. Ginny likes to pull the toilet paper from the bottom, not the top. She steals the covers, and not even in the middle of the night—as she’s falling asleep, when she’s half-conscious. She leaves her clothes in piles all over the bedroom floor, which Nat should have expected, because even relatively neat people have to have one area where they are messy (OCD, Ginny is not). That would be fine, except her shoes are _always_ hiding at the bottom underneath the skirts and blouses and blazers and scarves, and Nat has tripped over more stilettos in the last month than she has in the last decade. 

And honestly, Ginny is too thoughtful. She always is bringing Nat coffee, or tea, or asking what she can get her when she goes out for something. 

“Don’t you have people for that sort of thing?” Nat asks at one point.

“I enjoy doing it,” Ginny says simply, the invisible _for you_ dangling out of her mouth like a bubble in a comic strip. “It’s no trouble.” 

Nat is not used to this. It’s not that she’s _not_ considerate, it’s just that she’s not used to—people. 

Or rather, one person. Being around one person so much. Learning that person for reasons that don’t entail killing them at the end of the week.

*

Ginny has always been able to wake up without waking Nat. Ever since their first night together—years have passed, and that hasn’t changed. It’s somewhat unsettling, but it can be nice.

But it can unsettle Ginny, too.

The first time Nat awakens to Ginny stroking her back, she flips Ginny and puts her in a rear naked choke. 

“Nat—it’s _me_ —” Ginny barely chokes out before Nat releases her. Nat doesn’t even think as she climbs off Ginny, gets out of bed, walks briskly across the bedroom and grabs a black dress out of the closet. It doesn’t matter which one it is—she doesn’t care if she looks like she’s coming out of a club at eight in the morning, if everyone thinks she’s doing a walk of shame.

She may as well be.

Nat pulls the dress over her head and slips into heels as she hears Ginny yelling her name, still in the bedroom because Ginny, of course, is scrambling to put on appropriate daytime wear, which apparently includes underwear. But Nat is out the door, it’s clicking shut behind her, and she’s taking the stairs because Ginny would never think to. 

Ginny will beat her out of the building and won’t even know it.

But then, two flights down, Nat hears a door to the stairwell open above her.

“ _Nat! Stop_!”

Nat freezes on the stairs, more out of shock than anything else. She hears light feet—barefoot feet—run down the stairs. She turns slowly. Ginny is in yoga pants (with underwear) and a tank top, no bra. Barefoot in the stairwell, panting. 

She took the stairs. 

“Nat, I—” Ginny starts, but Nat swallows hard and runs up the stairs, not thinking, and wraps Pepper in a crushingly tight embrace, because.

Because Ginny might have triggered reflexes she didn’t know about ten minutes ago, but she knew to take the stairs.

Because she chased after Nat, in spite of everything. Is always chasing Nat, convincing her to come home, convincing her that it’s safe.

This is what being known is like.

*

It’s a lunar eclipse—a blood moon, and Nat is lying up on the roof of Stark Tower, watching the sky, thinking of the last time she saw one of these. She was a little girl, lying on the roof of her house, and—

She hears Tony’s footsteps, clobbering, and shuts her eyes. 

The evening had been so lovely. Or… well, lovely might be a word. 

Tony sits down next to her for some ungodly reason, so Nat decides to go for the jugular in the hopes that he’ll move, go back inside, decide that anywhere is more interesting and important than sitting next to her. 

“How’s it going with Steve?” she asks, her voice as saccharine as possible. 

“I fucked up,” Tony says, taking a swig from his flask. He offers it to Nat. “But, that’s me and relationships. What else is new?”

Nat sighs and sits up. The one thing she and Tony have in common, and of course he would mention it. 

“I hear you,” she says, taking the flask and scooting closer to him. Honestly, she’s got sympathy for him on this subject. 

She did just put her girlfriend in a chokehold last week. 

“Huh. Figures,” Tony snorts. 

“What?”

“I mean, all the Avengers are fuck-ups, that goes without saying, but some are more functional than others. Or at least are capable of registering what normal looks like, even if they can’t quite perform it. Steve knows what it looks like. Even Clint knows what it looks like. Sort of,” Tony says, rambling. He’s not drunk, though he’s at least halfway there. 

“Clint is a truly exceptional case,” Nat says, raising a finger. “He and Coulson are—” She sighs. “One in a million. Seriously. And it took a lot of alcohol and the fact that Clint has virtually no impulse control to get them there,” she says. Clint would kill her for telling Stark that, but that’s what he gets for making her watch Star Wars a million times. 

“Whereas the rest of us—”

“Are scared shitless and emotionally stilted.” 

“And that’s your professional opinion?” Tony asks. “Well, fuck that.”

“You asked,” Nat says, taking another swig.

“So, what’s your story?” Tony asks.

“You don’t want to know.”

“You know that you don’t even have background documents on the S.H.I.E.L.D database? You, Coulson, Clint. None of you. What level of classified are you?” Tony asks. 

Nat just smirks. 

“Fine,” Tony mutters, drinking. “I’ll find out someday.”

“Honestly, Tony, you really don’t want to know my story,” Nat says, knowing that such a statement will only make him more curious. 

“Try me.”

So predictable. 

“Let’s put it this way,” she starts. “When you were a kid, your dad neglected you. Ignored you. Yeah?” she asks, and he almost flinches. She nods. “When other girls were worrying about fashion and boys, I was worrying about whether killing someone in self-defense was a sin. After that, the life I got pulled into seemed like Disney World.” 

Tony is quiet, still. 

“There’s a reason some people have their files blacked out,” Nat says, getting up.

“Does Pepper know this?” Tony asks. 

Nat considers her words. “Not yet,” she says.

Tony nods slowly. “Okay.” 

“Can I have another drink?” Nat asks, tilting her head. 

Tony hands her the flask. 

“You know we’re all fuck-ups, and we all work well as a team. It’s not too surprising that some of us would end up in bed together, too,” Nat says, wiping her mouth. “Steve really cares about you.”

Tony downs the rest of the whiskey. “I don’t deserve that man.”

“No, you don’t. Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do your damnedest to love him back, though. And that’s my advice for the night,” Nat says, and she heads back into the house. 

“Good talk, Agent,” Tony calls after her.

*

There’s a crisp breeze, and it’s the perfect day to be outside—not too hot, not too cold. Ginny puts on a jacket—“Might want to add another layer,” Nat reminds her—and they head out of the apartment for a walk in Central Park. They need to have a talk, and they’ve learned that those are best had on the move.

Nat’s never been one for physical affection, and Ginny isn’t clingy by any stretch of the imagination, but this is one of those occasions where Ginny takes Nat’s arm, and neither of them mentions it. 

“How was it?” is all Ginny asks. 

“Brutal,” Nat says. 

“Everyone was there?”

“The whole team. Even Coulson.”

Steve had proposed to Tony.

It hadn’t gone well.

“When Steve asked me to hold onto a ring…” Ginny shakes her head. 

Nat looks at Ginny with nothing but affection. “Your mind doesn’t work that way. Partly because you know Tony so well that you didn’t see how Steve could possibly have engagement on his mind.”

“I adore Steve, I do, but sometimes he’s just…”

“Not quite clued in. I know,” Nat says. 

They pass a string quartet, and they pause as Ginny pulls out a twenty to throw in the violin case.

“Steve is moving back to S.H.I.E.L.D headquarters. Tony is holed up in the lab,” Nat says.

“How do you want to handle it?” Ginny asks.

“You take Tony, I take Steve?” Nat responds. 

“Are you sure you want to take Steve?” Ginny asks as Nat guides them down a winding path. “Not that I disagree, but you two never quite hit it off.”

“I know,” Nat says, watching a group of pigeons cluster around a park bench. “But you’re one of three people on the planet who can actually get through to Tony, and you’re one of approximately two who he is talking to right now. You get the insolent child; I’ll take the strong and silent soldier. I’m good with those when I put my mind to it, believe it or not.”

“On it,” Ginny says, squeezing Nat’s arm. “You know this means you’ll have to get back in deep with S.H.I.E.L.D.”

“Coulson will take care of everything.”

“Will you still live at the tower?” Ginny asks.

“I don’t know.”

“Will you still stay with me?”

“Ginny.” Nat swings around and cups Ginny’s face with her hands. “We—just. Trust me on this.”

“I know, I know. I’m sorry. That sounded like too much of an ultimatum. I just… I get insecure sometimes.” Ginny reaches up and takes Nat’s hand.

“It’s just another mission. Mission keep Tony and Steve from losing their shit,” Nat says, leading them onto a bridge. 

“And get them back together.”

“I’m not that optimistic.”

“Hope for the best,” Ginny says, turning Nat into the wall of the bridge, leaning in for a kiss.

They get catcalled by a random passerby, but Ginny keeps Nat pinned.

“I’m not letting you clothesline this one,” she whispers into Nat’s mouth, and Nat laughs.

*

Nat tries to open the bedroom door quietly, but it always squeaks. She appreciates this as a matter of personal security, but not when she’s trying to come in quietly and not wake Ginny.

But Ginny is still awake even though it’s one in the morning, doing work on her iPad. Her hair is in a messy bun piled at the top of her head, and she’s got her black square-frame reading glasses on, and she’s wearing that lacy white nightdress that is completely impractical for sleeping, as are most of her nightclothes. Nat just leans against the door. After the day she’s had, it’s a sight for sore eyes. 

“Hi,” Nat says quietly.

“How was work?” Ginny asks, setting her iPad down.

Nat starts stripping off the weight of her S.H.I.E.L.D gear. Fuck, it’s good to be home. “Coulson actually fought me on this tooth and nail,” she says, bending over to take off her boots. “He thinks that I should be working primarily as a solo agent.”

“So you’d be easily called up to the Avengers if they needed you,” Ginny says, leaning back against the mountain of pillows.

“Exactly,” Nat says, a small smile playing at her lips. 

Nat still has trouble believing that she had once thought she wouldn’t talk to Ginny about her work. But it had been a nice idea. 

“I told him that the emotional stability of the team was paramount and that Steve being completely solo in S.H.I.E.L.D was the worst possible option for him.”

“To which Coulson…?” Ginny asks.

“Agreed. Eventually,” Nat says simply, and Ginny laughs. 

“What about Clint?”

“Clint’s working elsewhere at the moment,” is all Nat says. She doesn’t say that Coulson moved up the timeline on that particular mission so that Clint would literally be at the other end of the globe for the probable duration of her mission at S.H.I.E.L.D.

“So it all works out, then,” Ginny says, picking up her iPad, going back to her work. 

Nat pulls a tank top over her head and wants nothing more than to get in bed and crash, but the way Ginny says that—there’s a change in tone, there’s something—her eyes are downcast—there’s—

“You okay?” she asks. 

“Yeah,” Ginny says, fingers furiously typing, still staring at the screen.

Definitely not, then.

“Right,” Nat says. She walks over to the bed, clad in tank top and underwear (appropriate sleeping attire, to her mind), and sits down next to Ginny. “Set this down, please? What’s on your mind?”

“It’s disconcerting how good you’ve gotten at that,” Ginny says, taking her reading glasses off and setting them on the nightstand as Nat takes the iPad away.

Nat grins. “Eventually I was going to figure out just how transferable my skills were.”

Ginny laughs in spite of herself, and Nat takes her hand. 

“Something’s bothering you,” Nat says.

Ginny stares at the ceiling, and then at the bed, and when she finally looks at Nat, she has tears in her eyes. “You’re leaving again, and you can’t help it, it’s part of your job, I get it, and I’m trying to be good about it, and I just—” She wipes at her face. “I’m sorry, I want to support you in everything, and I _do_. I think what you are going to do for Steve is tremendous, and I think you are the single best person for this job, and I am a selfish, _selfish_ woman because I am going to miss you.”

Nat squeezes Ginny’s hand because she knows Ginny needs that, and she stares at the floor because _she_ needs that, the space, she always needs more space in processing this—this thing between them.

“I know you support me,” Nat says slowly. “And I know you will miss me. I’ll miss you, too,” she says, risking a look at Ginny, who gives her a weak smile. “But this isn’t going to get any easier over… over time.” She swallows hard. “This is my life. This is what I do. This is what I’m good at. My job takes me around the world. I put my life on the line constantly, and I _like_ it, not because I have a death wish but because I’m fucking good at what I do. The fact that death is an occupational hazard stopped scaring me long ago.” She wipes her mouth and looks away. 

“My schedule isn’t consistent, so I can’t guarantee that I’ll be around a lot. The Avengers is a bit of a security right now, but who knows how long that’ll last. I’m not—at the end of the day, I’m not Clint. Coulson and Clint somehow manage a slice of domesticity in this life, I mean, they are actually talking about getting a dog, I don’t even know how that’s possible, with Clint not living at Coulson’s anymore, but they are. You will never have a dog with me, or kids, partly because I don’t particularly like dogs or children, but partly because I couldn’t have them even if I _did_ want them. I do like cats, though. Cats are fine.”

“Nat—” Ginny says, taking Nat’s other hand, but Nat shakes her head.

“Let me finish. I know a lot about how people think, but when I’m with you my brain gets fuzzy and everything I _technically_ know goes out the window because apparently I only have enough blood to run my brain or my heart, and my heart takes priority, and I cannot _begin_ to tell you how much that scares me. I am not good at whatever it is that we do, so tell me when I’m fucking up. I will grovel when I hurt you—because I will—and I will do my damnedest to make you happy, because when I’m with you I feel happier and more comfortable and more _right_ than I do anywhere else, and I haven’t even mentioned your legs yet—”

Ginny reaches for Nat, kisses her hard, threads her hands through her hair, doesn’t let go. 

“So… what it is that I hear you saying, exactly?” Ginny asks at last. 

“Jesus, you still have to ask? What am I doing wrong?” Nat asks, her fingers playing with the hair at the nape of Ginny’s neck. “Is it not obvious?”

“I want you to say it,” Ginny murmurs against Nat’s lips.

Nat takes a deep breath. “I love you.”

Ginny pulls Nat on top of her, both of them falling back on the bed, but she doesn’t make a move—just burrows into Nat. She nuzzles Nat’s neck, twines her legs around Nat’s legs, clutches at Nat’s neck.

Nat realizes that Ginny is crying, so she holds on tight. “I love you, I love you, I love you,” she whispers, letting the words fall on Ginny’s skin like rain.

*

Nat wakes up in the middle of the night, realizes that they fell asleep like that, all tangled up in each other.

Domestic indeed. 

She wipes at Ginny’s tear-stained eyes and leans her forehead to Ginny’s gently. Closes her eyes. Regulates her breathing to match Ginny’s. 

Curves her arm around Ginny, pulls her in a little tighter. And goes back to sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Stay tuned for a Tony/Steve story that carries us into _Captain America: The Winter Soldier..._


End file.
